"Unto Repentance" and "Unto Salvation"

The phrase John the Baptist used is, “unto repentance” and you only see this phrase show up one other place in the word of God and it is dealing directly with a Jew living in a future tribulation which is followed by a Kingdom reign that has the Lord Jesus Christ reigning a thousand years on Earth, with Israel as the apple of his eye.

If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.  Hebrews 6:6 

It is vital to note that Paul never used the phrase “unto repentance”.  It’s always “unto salvation” with him!  These defining and separating phrase, “unto repentance and “unto salvation” are important to noticing the distinction. Here are some examples of “unto salvation”.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:9-10

And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 3:16

Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:5

It is simply not the same message or associated with the same gospel.  Paul’s gospel and the gospel preached in the Gospels are just as separate as the law and grace, though both are concerning Christ. The gospel preached in the gospels was a gospel of repentance.  It was unto repentance.  The one that Believers preach is the gospel of grace, the one that Paul taught the collective Christian body of his day.

Repent or Die!

Before I get started on this hot button issue among Baptist preachers, teachers and theologians, let me say 2 things to establish somethings.  One, as respectfully as I can say it, I don’t care what C.H. Spurgeon or any other Church fore father said on this issue about repentance being essential or necessary for salvation. He ain’t the Pope man! 

I don’t know him.  He is not my friend, nor any other dead men from his era.  I have no loyalty to him, so I don’t hang my hat on what he or any other man say.  He is not my church father on this issue of repentance and neither are you pastors out there preaching it to strongly! You men can take the great Baptist positional quotes you use to bolster your positions all you want.  The matter is, “What saith the Lord?” We will look closely at it.

Secondly, No man living today should be acting or mimicking any way shape or form actions or even messages of Ezekiel, John the Baptist, or in some cases, Jesus Christ himself.  Yes, even Jesus.  Some of you don’t believe that. No man alive today standing behind any pulpit or on a street corner should be preaching like the prophets or focusing on certain things that the prophets focused on. 

This repentance theology, that has creeped in, is also bordering on the edge of a heresy, called “sinless perfection”.  Say a man repents of all their sins believing in the Lord as a preacher would tell them and as many preach but then what happens when they return to their sins?  

Now some would say here, “Oh, you know what we mean, and we don’t really believe that they need to repent of ALL their sins…”.  Then cut it out and quit saying it.  Quit preaching it so incessantly. If you have to defend your position constantly, it may not be attacks from the brethren, it may be God trying to show you something.  This repentance position is weak.

Quit trying to fool yourself and your people into thinking you have some mystical, mythical higher calling then them to tell the world and the people around you to repent of all their transgressions and abominations.  

Why I Don't Support Faith Promise Missions Giving

If I would title this anything it would be “Faith Promise Missions Giving”

Philosophy and traditions starving the Body of Christ at home to win the lost abroad

“Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord Deceitfully...!”

I can say with absolute surety, that giving in the word of God is intertwined with early and modern day Christianity in the NT. Let it be emphatically stated that giving is not in question whatsoever.  What I am examining is our methods and principles of giving.

Faith Promise has become so wrapped in Fundamentalism, and such a part of church traditions, if supporters of it were not making it a mandate or doctrine of the local church, the fuss would be minimal.  But this is not the case!  

I am straining at this gnat because people have made this “gnat” doctrine!  And they are nothing more then works and ideas of men. They say they are not forcing any one to give, but they say things like “we don’t require you to practice it but all our members do it”.  It is the join or die mentality.  And this is why I choose to deal with such a dividing topic!

It has been chronicled in A.B. Simpson and the Pentecostal Movement:, by Charles W. Nienkirchen that A.B. Simpson, the man with the original idea of “faith promise giving” was a full blown Pentecostal, which explains the hold they have on the Christian Missionary Alliance today. He also largely emphasized world wide evangelism in his preaching.  

Because of his influence and is fund raising prowess, many Nazarene churches, Church of God churches and Pentecostal churches today use “faith promise giving” largely in their missions giving techniques as equally and as long as Baptist churches have.  We all use the same phrasing, handouts, teachings, Faith Promise cards, etc. So how Independent are we really?

Questioning Commissions Not Commitments ~ Part 1

What is the Great Commission?  What do those words mean? What do they mean to you?   What do those words mean to the body of Christ? Where did the term come from? What does it typically mean to the masses in the modern churches today?  Is the Great Commission to be commanded? Is it to be mandated? Is it to be revered and used as much as we do as a collective body?    

The Great Commission is generally believed to be, according to many “one of the most significant passages in the Holy Bible. First, it's the last recorded personal instruction given by Jesus to His disciples. Second, it's a special calling from Jesus Christ to all His followers to take specific action while on this earth.” This position is highly and widely regarded among the local churches.  “A special calling from Jesus?”

The “Great Commission”, though not a specific Bible phrase, is a phrase that Christians have long used to describe certain things found in select portions of the word of God.  The word “commission” shows up once in Acts 26:12 and it was a commission of death and imprisonment.  That is interesting to say the least.  

That commission was Paul’s “commission” to waste the church, quite literally. His commission produced waste.  The only connotation in the word of God regarding the word “commission” involves death, lawlessness, unrighteousness, terror, fear, and panic, to imprison and deliver unto death those who believe in the “new way”.  Paul’s commission was to waste the body. The chief priests had authority and a commission, too.  They gave it to Paul to carry out, and he received it.

In the case the of the synoptic gospels, these passages are where many men see their special, selective calling, mandate, charge or order for their ministries and they call the passages “the Great Commission”.  Many men believe this message to be directly relevant and absolutely connected to our preaching, outreach, worship, and how we conduct our service styles today in Christianity.

Questioning Commissions Not Commitments ~ Part 2

The fact remains is that men have long made it a practice to use the word, and I cannot stress enough how serious I mean to say, “use the word of God” for private agendas and to further their private kingdoms.  For the common good or whatever lies they have to tell themselves these days, many just continue on, examining others, never examining themselves.  Men will privately interpret passages for private reasons.  It is a common practice displayed among decent and devious men  alike and has been in the works since the time of Christ. 

Missionaries and preachers have long claimed unfounded and loose interpretive callings for ministerial nonsense and money grabbing shakedowns by way of using the Great Commission. They have long found, as the definition of commission states, their doings, performing, perpetuating, sending, act of entrusting, duty; and it is now their proper authority and warrant for exercising certain powers, administrations, and duties in the Great Commission passages.  

These passages in the gospels have been used for centuries to solicit services and funds from among Christian bodies.  Sure their is gain, but no one ever discusses the other spectrums of disorder. To use these passages to solicit service, or even funds and offerings is unscriptural and dangerously close to adding to his word.  

In many cases now, I can only see it as defraudation or using guile and gimmicks to obtain an desired affect.  By applying a teaching or doctrine to these scriptures, then saying they are directly for the body of Christ is adding to the doctrinal position of the passage.  To do so, one must ignore the scriptural integrity of Gods book.  There is a very specific reason for men to deny that there is any disorder.

You will see variations of this in every evangelistic, Baptist church you can find. It is the big idea that is fully entrenched in well fortified Baptist traditions and preserved by some mafia like omerta! It is why there is never a real discussion or theological sit down over it.  Men will look at you like a two headed dragon just for suggesting this may be an off base position. They act this way because the great commission is the prominent “big idea” that many Fundamentalist, and Evangelical, Bible Believing Christians have in their minds for the reasons for doing much of what they do.  Who would ever dare question it right?